extemporally

1 - Your current OTP
2 - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind
3 - A pairing you have never liked and probably never will
4 - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t
5 - Have you added anything stupid/cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what
6 - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom
7 - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it
8 - Do you prefer characters from real action series or anime series
9 - Has the internet caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why
10 - Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr your social network sites
11 - How do you feel about the other people in your current fandom
12 - Your favorite fanartist/author gives you one request, what do you ask for
13 - Your favorite fanart or fanartist
14 - Your favorite fanfiction or fanauthor
15 - Choose a song at random, which OTP does it remind you of
16 - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)
17 - A ship you’ve abandoned and why
18 - A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships
19 - Show us an example of your personal headcanon
20 - Do you remember what your first fanwork was?
21 - Self-rec: What's your favorite fanwork you've created?
22 - Are you one of those fans who can’t watch anything without shipping
23 - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms
24 - 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms
25 - A fandom you’re in but have no ships from
26 - Ask me a different fannish question

Just finished watching all the Borgen episodes there are in existence. I frequently talk about being so bad at watching TV; I wander off and do other things on the Internet or lose the will to hunt down episodes all too easily. The flipside of that is that when a show grabs my attention, it really grabs my attention - I was up till 4 AM last night watching the brilliant finale and finally got what my good friend Max meant when he said the last five minutes of the season 2 finale was amazing. (Spoiler: it was.)

Borgen is also brilliant at anticipating all my narrative needs; frequently I'd come to the end of an episode and think, "That was great but what they really need to do is focus on Birgitte's personal life," or "Great political strategy but what about the stuff that actually makes a difference to people's lives?" or "What about more gender stuff?" and in the very next episode they'd deliver, it's kind of freaky and also great. This show juggles a lot of balls - in one episode alone they tackle about three to four heavy-duty issues in a smart and coherent storyline - and they never let a single one go for too often. It's ambitious and clever storytelling at its best; I can't help comparing it with Political Animals and feeling that in every respect Borgen comes out on top.

I... am also not entirely sure how many times in a row I can say "Call me, Birgitte", but there are not enough times in the world. Her clothes! Her smarts! Her everything! I have way too many torrid fantasies about either being a) an intern in the PM's office (somehow magically speaking Danish, of course) or b) Birgitte's au pair (again somehow magically speaking Danish). All of a sudden I have this incredible lust for office wear, impeccable makeup, and a ponytail. I haven't done ponytails since leaving high school; such is Birgitte Nyborg's power. BIRGITTE, CALL ME.

( One thing I didn't like: (spoilers) )

POLITICAL ANIMALS COMMENT FICATHON

you know you want to - i have been prompting all the 'politics i get angry about thinly disguised as fic' stories my little heart desires. come play! and please, for the love of god, fill some of my prompts.

I know I've already posted like 295 times today but I've been feeling chatty recently; today I want to talk about Torchwood ( lots of chatter and some spoilers for the first two seasons )

This is me reviewing all the books I've read recently that aren't Winter's Bone.

(Seriously - if I haven't brought to bear enough in the last review post I made: Winter's Bone is so good. It's good in a way that makes me want to watch the film for a fifth time, and makes me want to reread it and understand more and read up on Ozarkian tradition, and more in that universe - what happens to Sonny and Harold? Relatedly, if you've watched the film but not read the novel, read THIS FIC, which draws on backstory in the novel but is a fic for the film; anyway it's great. Then come talk Winter's Bone with me, omggg.)

Step-Ball-Change, by Jeanne Ray.

So Jeanne Ray is totally predictable and I love it. Kind middle-aged lady who has one big driving passion (baking, journalism, dance, flowers)? Check! Beleagured husband in public service? Check! Self-absorbed younger daughter? Check! There are usually a couple of sons hanging around here, too. And then SOMETHING HAPPENS, and everyone gets through it with humour and grace, and people learn a couple of things about themselves and their family, and people grow closer together. This is kind of the novel version of The Cosby Show. Not that I've ever watched The Cosby Show, so I probably don't know what I'm talking about. /o\

( light spoilers )

The Body in the Library, by Agatha Christie.

Reading this made me kind of sad because in my head Miss Marple is my favourite detective ever, but I don't think I enjoy the novels she's in that much, if that makes sense? Anyway, this was pretty underwhelming even if it was really clever (I totally should have caught the Big Clue in the middle, argh); maybe because the setting (a hotel) just didn't do it for me and neither did the characters, perhaps Agatha Christie was still trying to get a grip on the kind of Middle England As Narrated By Miss Marple she was trying to depict here (this was only her second Marple novel, after all), or maybe because ( spoilers start here, I guess )

The Mysterious Mr Quin, by Agatha Christie

I'd read and loved the Harley Quin stories in Problem at Pollensa Bay but this collection as a whole didn't shine for me? I think it takes remarkable skill to sustain a universe in which the supernatural is an expected and reliable element (as it must be, in detective fiction) because the whole point of the supernatural is to be unpredictable. So... kudos to Agatha Christie, I guess. This format, especially when repeated throughout the entire collection, just isn't an inherently successful one, I don't think.

( the ending is kind of amazing though )

Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman.

DUDES I CONFESS. Totally missed the Neil Gaiman bandwagon! Never read anything by Gaiman besides Good Omens and Stardust, picked this up, totally loved it - I've been told American Gods is even better, which makes me writhe in glee and anticipation. For some reason, after reading Good Omens, I'd come under the impression that Pratchett was responsible for the funny parts and Neil Gaiman was responsible for the myth-y bits, and came away from Anansi Boys totally surprised at how funny this was. WHY DOES NO ONE EVER TELL ME ANYTHING?

( seriously )

So THAT IS THAT. I am now reading Orhan Pamuk's My Name Is Red, though very slowly and warily (scarred forever by The White Castle tbh) and liking it a lot so far. When we next meet up, forochel is lending me Lord of the Rings! THAT'S RIGHT I AIN'T EVER READ IT BEFORE. extemporally: forever a handful of decades behind the pop culture curve.

Title: the frightening truth about desire
Fandom: One Direction
3000 words | PG

Five a couple of times they see each other naked and one time it's on purpose.

'What do you mean, why am I naked? It's my hotel room, of course I'm naked!'

Winter's Bone, by Daniel Woodrell.

Really glad this is number one hundred. I've been wondering how I should review this novel - Winter's Bone the film was absolutely one of my favourite films I've watched this year, if not ever, not that you can't tell it from the incredibly protracted discussions I had about it, um. So I knew I was going to enjoy the novel too, but I wasn't sure how I was going to talk about it on its own terms.

( A long-ass book review in which I go into THEME and CHARACTER. Spoiler: I loved it )

Calling Invisible Women, by Jeanne Ray.

AWESOME - middle-aged Clover Hobart wakes up one day and finds that she's become invisible. ( not a long review but cut because some spoilers - not huge explicit spoilers, but spoilers nevertheless. whoops! )

The Magicians of Caprona, by Diana Wynne Jones.

I liked this a lot but it wasn't my favourite Chrestomanci book; I guess a lot of that is down to my personal hangups about how I associate DWJ with a particular kind of Englishness and so the Italian setting here kind of knocked me off-course, which is weird, because I didn't think that DWJ failed at writing Caprona or anything like that. In fact, it was pretty great!!! I was a fan of all the Petrocchi-Montana partnerships, esp. ( ahhh spoiler cut ) and the singing especially was great. I... just don't have a whole lot to say about this novel, is all. /o\

Witch Week, by Diana Wynne Jones.

Someone (I forget who) told me that Witch Week is one of their favourite Chrestomanci novels and OH MAN I TOTALLY SEE WHY. Like, this was such a weird perspective because in all the Chrestomanci novels magic is front and centre in a way it was (but wasn't!!!) here; I mean in the sense of this world being completely similar to Real Life so that when magic or witchcraft showed up it was this huge threatening thing.

( It hurts to be burnt. )

Is, by Joan Aiken.

I always tend to think that Joan Aiken is much less famous than she actually is, with the result that whenever I read one of her novels I always end up beating at my chest and rending my clothing and doing some seriously weird things with sackcloth and ashes and being like WHY ISN'T SHE MORE FAMOUS THOUGH??? Throwbacks of being of the Harry Potter generation: writing YA suddenly seems so much more lucrative and glamorous than it actually is.

( This review is all about Charles Dickens and also is way too long. )

Cold Shoulder Road, by Joan Aiken.

Not as brilliant as Is, but I think I make it pretty clear in my last review that that's a pretty high standard. I'm all talked out now but I enjoyed this! I didn't think the Dickens mojo was as strong in here, if only because it was pretty different in terms of theme and character - Dickens can do a lot of things, but he never really paid any attention to 'somewhat dysfunctional and mismatched families trying to work it out while saving the world' without reducing it to caricature, so.

Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters.

ANOTHER DICKENS HOMAGE and no I'm not even kidding, GUYS this is so obviously the lesbian version of Great Expectations and ( this sentence goes on for a while. )

s'up, s'up:

Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any fanfic I’ve written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what’s going on in the character’s heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

Fic here! ♥